It is becoming harder and harder to achieve emotional, spiritual and in some cases physical distance from what is happening in this country. I hear more and more people saying that they are reluctant to buy, sell or make changes to their home because the economy is so labile. People whose status as Americans in uncertain or tentative – or being challenged – are trying to hide out of sight in fear because the immigration and citizenship process has become so capricious and cruel. And more and more people are afraid to speak or write about some of their concerns because their remarks may lead to some sort of indictment.
So many of us are living in a swirl of fear, anger, outrage, and resentment that at moments it feels as though we are being suffocated. It is hard to breathe when the airwaves are filled with such vitriol and vengeance, and we are being confronted with such naked attempts to achieve domination.
What we need in the face of the rise of autocracy and the dismantling of democracy is an emotional and spiritual oxygen mask or ventilator. And we have them. They are not physical, but existential, and they can be soul saving. Nearly 100 years ago, poet T.S. Eliot wrote Ash Wednesday (1930), shortly after he converted to Anglicanism (which is where I make my spiritual home). In the poem he wrote – twice – “teach us to care and not to care.” The implication for me in our current situation is that Eliot is calling me to make an important separation between the tornado of feelings generated by all the chaos, corruption, incompetence, lack of compassion, and disregard of due process and the rule of law, on the one hand; and the issues that all the executive orders affect on the other. We need to care about those issues – human rights, economic inequality, the growing acceptance of racial prejudice and racism, incivility, climate change, the attempt to rework American history – and on and on — and do what we can to protest the illegality, protect the vulnerable, and witness to justice.
The effects of the avalanche, tornado, tsunami, volcanic eruption – choose your metaphor because they all apply – are life denying. Eliot’s poem is also challenging us to not care about them, or at least care less about them, because when we do so we are then better enabled to be more attentive to and effective with the issues that the Trump administration is taking on.
There is a spiritual discipline that I have found to be a kind of spiritual ventilator that helps me breathe amid the swirl. It is an act of oblation. Oblation refers to a prayerful offering to a god or spirit. It is an act of giving, or more particularly, giving over. I physically extend my arms with upturned palms in a calisthenic of offering. Occasionally I audibly identify what I am giving over: “here, take this. It is too much for me.” Most of the time I am silent, but with a clear internal intention of what I want to turn over. Does it work? I can’t say for sure, but in some confidence – mixed with faith – I can say it is working, provided I keep offering it, sometimes several times a day. I am breathing better. I am finding that I am less constricted by the chaos, and more focused and committed to preserving the democracy that is being ruthlessly threatened. I am learning to care and not to care. My oblation is to a God with whom I have had a lifelong relationship. Others may give their offering to a spirit – or to the universe, depending on their religious faith or lack of same. In any case, the oblation is to a capacious space that can receive it, providing some distance from the chaos, at the same time freeing us up to do the important work that is before us. We all need to keep at it, trusting that it will open us up to grace, mercy and, for some of us, God’s loving presence.
The Bible demonstrates to me that creativity can come out of chaos if – and this is a big if, we can live into the paradox of standing in the chaos while at the same time having some distance from it. President Trump is a master not only at creating chaos, but ensnaring – and spiritually paralzying – people in it. That is his perverse strength. We have options and resources to help lead us through all the turbulence so we can help restore, and build, a more perfect Union. Engage them.
